


Number One

by Lyssandra_Med



Series: One-Shot [42]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22297798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: A passion project leads Hermione to find the one woman with all the answers to every question that she has.That she happens to skulk about at night with the intention of mayhem and death is purely incidental.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Series: One-Shot [42]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429282
Comments: 19
Kudos: 112





	Number One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StabbyCrabby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StabbyCrabby/gifts).



> Minimal Editing

Hermione Granger was never one to go at anything in half measures. Whenever there was something to be done it would have to be done right the first time, no mistakes, no muss, no fuss. So when it finally came down to the middle of August, summer in full swing and nothing at all assured except heat and the slow drip of sweat onto her brow, Hermione was  _ ready. _ All her months of preparation were leading up to this one moment where she would either sink or swim.

Hermione was not one to sink. 

Not a single procedural had been left unwatched. Not a single police report left uncopied. Not a single book left unread, not a highlighter spared in her set up for this night.

She had been following behind her quarry for weeks now. Too long, if anyone were to ask. The excess time had annoyed her when it first became apparent that her predictions were wrong, but after so many more hours spent studying and reviewing and preparing… Hermione was set. Even the location seemed to have agreed with her; the northern side of town was mostly uninhabited except by those without enough or those who were hiding too much, a long strip of land once given over to industrial plants and shapeless heaps of brick structures. Nothing grew here anymore, not really, and what had once lived between everything was now rotted and calm. 

Well, everything except the burnt-out husks of cars and empty needles dropped all about the place in hopes of stabbing one final victim. Those traps and lanes of travel would prick or pounce or loose on someone who was unsuspecting.

Hermione was  _ not _ unsuspecting.

She was absolutely ready, over-prepared, her movements slow and quiet and a mixture of all the little instructions she had read about online. Soft sneakers, no jewellery to clank or dangle, the whole of her body hushed up in a wreath of black that left her invisible enough to keep all identifying characteristics hidden.

Well,  _ mostly _ hidden.

There wasn’t exactly anything else she could do to tame the mass of frizzled curls that remained barely constrained by her knit cap. Tying all of it down and back had only done her so much good, as the unbelievable humidity of the month was too much for her to beat.

But she was mostly hidden. Mostly quiet. Mostly silent as a mouse.

Watching alleys, waiting hidden at crossroads, staring down an empty alleyway between the enormous rise of a building that proclaimed a mastery over petroleum refinement and one much smaller that had advertised little plastic buttons. Her lure was currently halfway in a crouch not even thirty metres away, his long arms down by his shoes as he reached or fought to pick something up. Money? Maybe. She wasn’t sure. Honestly, she didn’t quite care.

He was the lure. Nothing more, nothing less. Hermione was awaiting a bigger prize with wide eyes that seemed dryer and dryer as seconds ticked on into minutes of silence that promised something  _ more. _

She  _ knew _ that the woman would be here. She would  _ have _ to be here. It was the only logical choice. The massively annoying spreadsheets she had been tending to all summer said she would be here, that  _ this _ is where the pattern would repeat, that  _ this _ was where her prey was skulking about,  _ that this was where she could finally meet- _

“Hmm, are you lost, little Pet? Whatever are you doing out here all alone?”

The voice was a husk of warm air that forced all the little hairs along the back of Hermione’s neck to stand at attention. For a single instant she was startled beyond belief, frightened even, and all of her muscles tensed up as her heart began to jackhammer within her chest.

Only a moment though, just barely long enough for her to realize exactly what had happened.

_ She did it! _

Hermione pivoted in a single movement that pushed her forward with words already flying from her mouth. The turn completed so slowly that she wasn’t even sure it was happening, finally coming to rest as she caught sight of the woman at her back.

“It’s you!” Hermione swallowed back against the desert suddenly invading her throat, “It’s really you! I knew it, I knew that I could do it!”

The words were expelled with haste, too fast, too quick, all sense of decorum exhausted in favour of a highly unusual squeal of accomplishment. The action left Hermione shaking with breath that panted and froze, a reminder of the marathon she had run last month but so very different all the same.

Different, because instead of simply running for hours on end, she had found a serial killer.

A serial killer who at that moment was holding a very large, and very sharp, machete. Her grip was loose, uneven really, fingers just barely holding onto the carved length of the wooden handle. In the other hand she held duct tape and a small plastic bag, the contents hidden behind the opaque material but easy enough for Hermione to guess at.

A serial killer with looks that could do the job for her. Long black hair spilling down into ringlets and whorls and silken shine that made Hermione  _ blush. _

A serial killer with pale stretches of skin, coal-black eyes, and the beauty of an angel. Or a devil, in this case.

“...You what now?” The woman was staring up at her slightly, just maybe a few centimetres shorter, a quizzical look across her body that contrasted sharply with the image Hermione had been imagining.

She was cute, if deadly.

Hermione continued staring, more entranced with every second that passed between them. Honestly, she simply found herself flabbergasted at her incredible luck. She had  _ finally _ achieved her goal, was  _ finally _ standing before the dreaded Death Eater -  _ a silly name from the Media, if Hermione had ever heard one _ \- and filling seconds with blank air.

And another.

And another-

“Oh shit, sorry! I’m sorry! Look, I just- I didn’t mean to just stare at you like that, I completely forgot myself. Won’t happen again! It’s just that- well, you see I noticed that there was this pattern, right? And I thought to myself, well, I can figure that out! And I could, even though it took months with how slow you go sometimes, and I stuck with it until  _ finally _ had more than enough data to plot it all out and try to predict where you’d be. Not that it was a prediction really, it just fits your method to a tee, and I just thought that since I’m still- Well, I’m sorry, you probably don’t want to hear all my method do you? Oh, I’m rambling again too, sorry about that. And about all the word gush, it’s just that I can’t believe it finally worked.  _ It’s you!” _

“Oh fuck me up the arse.” The knife dropped down from the woman’s hand to impale itself into the soft dirt at their feet. The handle was a beautiful thing carved from old wood and sharp as could be, the whole of it wiggling back and forth as they stood there.

“I’m your biggest fan!”

\---

“Bella!”

Hermione left her voice to reverberate throughout the small apartment for a minute or two before getting up to leave the confines of the kitchen and stare down the hallway. The door to their bedroom was open, as it should be, and though there had been no answering reply she knew that Bellatrix was back home.

Living together for almost five years had tended to lend itself well towards that sort of innate realization. 

Was it past five in the afternoon? Was there the comforting scent of cinnamon and something bitterly metallic in the air?

Bella was home.

“Bella dear?! Can you come over for a moment?”

A muted grumbling was the only reply to Hermione’s words, the sound itself a soothing reassurance that warmed her very core.

It might have been years since she had first encountered that voice, had first felt the woman’s breath against her neck, but every now and then Hermione would find herself transported back to their first meeting. Twenty-three and filled with grand ideas of meeting her anti-hero, of finding the perfect subject to write about.

Hermione had never expected that the little meet and greet would lead her to a whirlwind romance that was repeatedly laced with the promise of pain and loss of her life, but, well… Nothing about Bellatrix was predictable.

Except for her pattern, perhaps. But even that had ended up changing once Hermione had followed her back to the dingy little flat that Bellatrix had called home. Now, so many years later and undoubtedly smarter, Bellatrix was much more an opportunist. Still strategizing, still cunning, but better suited to random situations and moments that wouldn’t let her ever be found again.

That all her methods were key to Hermione’s burgeoning success as a mystery writer was purely incidentally.

Hermione would have helped Bellatrix assume a better plan regardless of getting anything out of it for herself; the company of the woman was more than enough for her.

“What’d’ya want, Pet?” Bellatrix sauntered her way into the kitchen with nothing more than a plain black tank-top and matching panties, her hair a tousled mess of riotous curls that never behaved and bleary eyes gummed up from lack of sleep.

“I wanted to catch you before you passed out. Was it like we thought it’d be?”

“Was it…? Oh!” Bellatrix came alive with eyes that widened and a stance that had her shifting until she could steady the weight of her body against the kitchen table, “Yes. A crochet needle really  _ does _ end up making quite the mess. Far too slippery to hold onto. Are you still thinking of using it?”

Hermione hummed out in response, jotting all that information down into a little black journal that she had purchased not even two years ago. Now, after tinkering nearly every day, it was filled with the endless minutiae of Bellatrix’s hunts, and Hermione’s thoughts on all of that. If there were ever a chance of discovery then the book would be burned, but for the moment it served as a repository for all the little questions she could ask, and all the sordid little answers that Bellatrix brought home.

It was perfect, in a word. Absolutely wonderful.

“Well, I think so. I can write it so that Tom was just a  _ little _ bit angrier before he killed Bathilda. Maybe I can psych him up a bit. It’ll leave it open for our dashing Heroine to connect all the dots.”

“Mm, alrighty then.” Bella padded forward to place the softest of kisses against Hermione’s cheek, “Good night dear.”

Hermione smiled into the affection, closed her journal, and stood to wrap herself about the older woman.

Odd, their little pairing. And yet she loved it all the same.

She was, after all, still Bellatrix’s biggest fan.


End file.
